The albums that shaped your life

This is pretty cliche, but I like to read people on here actually talking about this kind of shit so I figured I'd start this. I don't mean like albums that are your favorites, I mean the ones that really changed the way you looked at music and shaped your tastes for the years to come. Especially the ones that trigger bizarre waves of nostalgia each time you listen to them. If hearing a song brings you back to a specific period in your life, then please list it here. Would help if you listed when you first heard them too. Yes, this was inspired by The Seven Ages of Bands .

For me -

Emerson, Lake, and Palmer - Trilogy (heard in 4th grade): It's ridiculous those who bash ELP for being "too hard to get into", I loved 'em when I was only 10 years old. I never realized how important this album was to me until I woke up to the radio playing "From the Beginning" and laid in bed, stunned at how many memories it brought back. Made me remember the entire layout of my old room!! The bombast seems so much more natural when you're a kid.

They Might Be Giants - Flood (heard in 6th grade): Still get huge waves of nostalgia when I hear stuff like "Lucky Ball & Chain". Every song from this has been stuck in my head at some point and when I bought my first car this CD was looping for a month straight. Used to listen to this while playing Magic all the time.

Beastie Boys - Hello Nasty (heard in 7th grade): First current album I ever bought. Got it mostly because I loved the "Intergalactic" video and because it had a ton of tracks on it. Liked pretty much all of it though it gets a little dicey in the end. Had a difficult time comprehending how people could claim that Paul's and Check Your Head were such classics when this record defined everything the Beasties were to me. Loved all the hidden stuff, the goofy references, and how non-threatening and fun it all was.

Cake - Prolonging the Magic (heard in 7th grade): This was my paper route go-to album. Every song on it has been burned into my brain. At the time, I was convinced that this was the best and most likeable rock band of the last decade.

Fatboy Slim - You've Come a Long Way, Baby (heard in 7th grade): Another new disc I bought - I remember really liking the videos, especially "Praise You" and "Gangster Trippin'", ordering the album (which was a year or so old at the time), and being convinced that it was the future of music, something I'd really like for being "on top of" when I was in college (wtf, me). Really I guess I was attracted to the cartoonish sounds and wacky atmosphere of it all. My copy did not have "Fucking in Heaven" on it. Also I remember really hating the last two tracks.

Underworld - Everything, Everything (heard in 10th grade): Underworld were the first "favorite band" of mine that really changed everything for me. I got sick of Fatboy quick, and while the Chems were great I really overplayed them. I had gotten Beacoup Fish about a year or two prior and liked it, but this was the album that really hit home for me. It filled me with so much energy and positivity that I was basically an addict. This was when I started partying and drinking and I remember bringing this disc with me a lot, which a bunch of people loved (and some really hated). I'd list dubnobasswithmyheadman here too for different reasons.

King Crimson - In the Court of the Crimson King (heard in 12th grade): My first non-ELP prog album, and one of the first albums in a while to completely capture my imagination as a teenager. Kicked off a HUGE obsession with progressive rock. Still haven't heard anything like it.

The Kinks - Village Green Preservation Society (heard in 12th grade): This was my "escape" album. Listened to it all the time while playing old Zelda games so it still brings back those memories. It was the first pre-1969 album that I ever really liked. They seemed so much better than the Beatles were, even now. One of those albums where I could sing every word and even could play a bit on guitar (it's very simple, really). Also, my Mom hated it for some reason, which was cool.

Devo - Q: Are we Not Men? (heard 1st year of college): I liked Devo as a kid (my parents had the "greatest hits" album) but always figured their albums wouldn't be very good. How wrong I was - this made me realize that a lot of "New Wave" music still sounded very modern and that Devo were one of their greatest bands. One of the few albums that I connected with so well that I wasn't afraid to publicly declare it my favorite album of all time.

Aphex Twin - Richard D. James album (heard 1st year of college): I was not in a good state of mind when I first heard this and it really warped my brain. Gave me the first real feeling of "nothing will be the same after this". Really the only record to ever really scare me.

Yellow Magic Orchestra - Kyokyu no Rhythm (heard 2nd year of college): This was a "best of" with a lot of YMO's pop songs on it. I liked Kraftwerk a lot but YMO appealed to me in a different way - they seemed more fun and a lot more talented. I couldn't put it into words why but I had the urge to play this over and over and over again. This kicked off a really really big technopop phase that I'm still in.

Cardiacs - A Little Man and a House and the Whole World Window (heard 3rd year of college): Someone had sent me an MP3 of "In a City Lining" which immediately led to me downloading the whole album and going for a walk with my iPod. At the time I was really kinda burned out on new stuff thanks to all the downloading but in Cardiacs I heard a band that delivered on the promise of Zappa, Mike Patton, and all the other "this is so crazy, but so good!" type acts that I found disappointing.

Cornelius - Point (heard 3rd year of college): Awesome album that coincided with the start of my relationship that would turn into a very long-distance one (and later marriage). We'd see him live and "had a moment" during "Tone Twilight Zone", which made me tear up without fail whenever I heard it since (until she came to the country for good, that is!) I don't think he did many new things, but seemed to understand sound in a way that was all his own. Insane that he hasn't done anything since I got into him!

Wow, that was a lot. Anyway, lets hear yours.

http://www.fastnbulbous.com/chipmunk-punk.jpg

wait is frogbs louis jagg3r

This is a note from my FB but Im going to copy and paste it here anyway

Adam Ant – ‘Stand and deliver’, ‘Apollo 9’ – Pirate. Highwayman. Astronaut. Indian Chief. How fucking deadly was Adam Ant? He was the ultimate pop star. I dressed up as Adam Ant for a fancy dress party when I was six. It was during his Apollo 9 era, I wore PJ’s and a bandage under my eye. I lost. Mr T won. The fucker.

Frankie Goes To Hollywood – ‘Relax’, ‘Two Tribes’ – It’s kinda fucked up for a seven year old kid to be obsessed with Frankie Goes To Hollywood but for a couple of years there I really was. I remember buying the Relax single and on the cover was the lead singer and a big-tittied dominatrix in an s&m clinch. My mum raised an eybrow at that. Then in the Golden Grill restaurant, she read out the porno sleevenotes on the back of the ‘Relax’ cover. Something about Frankie ordering his sex slave to lick the shit off his shoes and a photo of someone cruelly tugging on a ring piercing a male nipple. It may have been the precise moment they knew I was an odd kid. To be honest, I didn’t have a clue what it was all about, I was only seven! I just knew they were ‘naughty’ but had no clue why. ‘Two Tribes’ scared the crap out of me actually. I became petrified of nuclear war. I still stand by them. Those two singles are colossal.

Eric Clapton – The Cream of Eric Clapton/ Jimi Hendrix – The Singles Collection – (tweens) ‘The CREAM of Eric Clapton’? Eeeeurghh, what an unfortunate name for a best of! I think I delivered my first ‘rockist’ statement around the time this came out. ‘No-one gives any credit to Eric Clapton! He’s the best guitarist in the world yet everyone goes on about Michael Jackson! He just sings and dances! He doesn’t even write his own songs!’ I don’t think I even heard Eric Clapton at that point (the TV advert told me he was the best guitarist in the world), but a statement like that is always handy to impress your mates with. The album eventually turned up in the house. I think one of my brothers got it but I ended up listening to it a lot more than him. I played it about 2 or 3 times a day. That Hendrix tape too. I used to rock out playing air guitar with my hurley. My mum would burst in and I’d be leaping around the place like a madman. I guess there’s worse things she could have caught me doing alone in my room at that age. Fnarr.

Nirvana – Nevermind – (14 and on) then for years I wasn’t really into music which is odd cos when I was a kid I was intensely into it. I hated all that Rick Astley crap that’s was in the charts and I wasn’t quite ready for all that indie music my older brother liked. I found it weird and depressing. Iron Maiden were retards too. But I caught the video for ‘Smells like teen spirit’ and it really interested me. Around xmas, I bought the album and ended up PLAYING IT TO DEATH. It was great, it was like intelligent heavy metal and they were great pop tunes too. That scream! I became a Nirvana fanatic, I wore that msiley t-shirt almost every day like a badge of honor. They opened up a whole new world of music for me. Like the next band.

Sonic Youth – Dirty – (15 and on) – I hated this the first time I listened to it yet found myself strangely compelled to listen to it again and again and again…..’They cant play their instruments! This is bullshit!’ What I originally hated about it at first ended up being everything I loved about it a few days later. They made me change the way I think about music. They’re so fucking cool too. Especially back then. I used to fantasize about hanging out with them. Walking around New York at night with them and dropping acid.

The Smiths – Hatful of Hollow – (15 and on) – Guns N’ Roses were around the same time as Nirvana and everyone loved them. I thought they had some great songs but always thought they were a bunch of assholes and posers. My mate Brian gave me the tape of ‘Lies’ to record and I recorded it onto the blank side of a C90 tape. Then by accident one day, I put wrong side of the tape on and The Smiths were on the other side and by the time the album finished I was like, ‘Fuck Guns n’ Roses’. I wont say something wanky like ‘they were mentors’ but listening to them when you are at a impressionable age like that was a godsend. It was ok to feel awkward, shy, a geek, out-of-step or a virgin. Accept yourself!

Pavement – Slanted and Enchanted – (15 and on) – I actually find myself stumped to put into words why I like this record so much. Maybe it’s tied in with memories of a glorious summer around then. It’s even got a song called ‘Summer Babe’! There’s an intangible bleary charm to the music on it. It sends me every time I listen to it. Inscrutable, mysterious, joyful, eccentric. I love it.

Beach Boys – Pet Sounds – (19 and on) – Some of the greatest lyrics and some of the greatest sounds ever. A portal to heaven must have opened up in the studio when they recorded ‘Don’t cry (Put your head on my shoulder)’

Fatboy Slim – Better Living Through Chemistry/ Daft Punk – Discovery – (early twenties) – Vicks Vaporub. ‘I love you man’. Greenhearts. Doves. Looking like you’ve been plugged into an electrical main. Conversations that go on until dawn. Laughing until you’re sides are sore. Loving everything and everyone around you. Unforgivable fashion mishaps that can never be erased from the memory banks. Dancing your ass off. Oh yeah the music was decent too.

Bark Psychosis – Hex – (mid twenties) the ultimate Sunday morning record. It’s a cobweb shaker. They’re quite like Talk Talk meets New Order or something. They’re in their own little musical universe. I used to listen to this daily for about a year, now I can’t find the fucking CD! Grrr

The Only Ones – The Only Ones – (late twenties) – I had the crap beaten out of me on two separate occasion, went to a couple of AA meetings, hated everyone, especially myself and was in a pit of dogshit-smelling despair. The time was ripe to let the Only Ones into my life. Can you be romantic and nihilistic at the same time? Well The Only Ones album is. There’s nothing quite like music to get you through bad times. It’s an unexpected treat when it does. I don’t listen to music for that reason but it can take you by surprise. This record was like my Samaritans back then. If you can write an ode to a lost cat as heart breaking as ‘Somewhere in the night’, I’ll put your balls in my mouth.

Steely Dan – The Royal Scam – (late twenties) I had a Steely Dan phase. ILM was partly responsible. I dont think I can add anything else about Stelly Dan that hasnt been said already around here. Every song is great on this record.

Half Man Half Biscuit – Camell Laird Social Club/ Jake Thackeray – Jake In A Box- (thirties) I put these two together cos they’re both very english and both very funny. HMHB have become on of my favorite bands. They’re funnier than most comedy doing the round on telly. They disprove the ‘no humour in music’ role and a song called ‘Tuned up, clocked on, laid off’ can say so much about the state of the world right now than any protest song can. The late Jake Thackeray was one of Britain’s greatest and most under-rated satirical songwriters. He has a very dry sense of humour.

Yeah I had been listening to Frankie Goes to Hollywood for years before I knew what the hell it was really about, kudos to them

also making me responsible for being nervous about nuclear war breaking out

Great thread frogbs. I like reading this sort of thing too, and it's funny how you guys were getting into similar things at the same points in yr lives as each other (and me). It's like, discovering RDJ album in your late teens is a rite of passage for music fans.

Who were born in the very late 70s / early 80s...

Kaos Theory (compilation series) / The Prodigy - Experience: before these, I'd mostly just listened to Eurodance and various types of chart pop. These were my first experiences with rave and hardcore techno (that's what we called it back then). Me and my friends used to listen to Experience and Kaos Theory comps all the time when were 13.

Cypress Hill - Black Sunday: This was my introduction to rap music. Every kid in my school owned this album. I remember the reefer references flew totally over my head back then (I was 16 when I first tried it), but the music was great in that it was laidback and hardcore at the same time.

Trancemaster 7: This was my first trance comp. From 1993 to 1995 I really loved early European trance, the oceanic and galactic stuff like Cosmic Baby, Sven Väth, Pete Namlook, Microglobe, etc. Then pop trance (or "wiener trance", as we call it in Finland) kicked in, and I haven't really paid attention to the genre ever since.

Paperclip People - Throw (single) / Love Inc. - R.E.S.P.E.C.T. (single): These made me realize how cool minimalism can be, especially in dance music. Still among my favourite singles of all time.

Björk - Debut: I never owned this album back then, but friends were always playing it. Made me appreciate individuality and having an unique voice more than any other record before it.

Shy FX feat. UK Apache - Original Nuttah (single): I'd mostly given up UK hardcore techno by now, but this tune showed to me it had turned into something new and unexpected. I started following this stuff again, and was excited when it mutated from jungle to drum & bass. Went to quite a few d&b parties, it was the best music to dance to when you were young and energetic.

Chumbawamba - Anarchy: I'd mostly stopped listening to pop music by now, but I was a young anarchist and activist, and the metaphors on this album resonated with me like no lyrics had ever done before. Plus the music was fun and catchy, too bad they lost it soon afterwards with Tubthumper.

Blech II: Blechsdöttir (compilation): Aside from some individual singles, this was my proper introduction to Warp records and "intelligent techno" in general. I was a serious Warp head for a year or two, until the wankiness of IDM started to bore me.

Nicolette - Let No One Live Rent-Free in Your Head: I was mostly listening to instrumental dance/electronic music at the time, but this one got me to see you can still do cool stuff with vocals in an electronic context. Some memorable lyrics too, especially the anarchist-themed "No Government".

Wu-Tang Clan - Wu-Tang Forever: Before this I'd only dug West Coast gangsta rap, but this one made appreciate East Coast styles. Also made me appreciate weird metaphysical/mytological/religious imagery in rap, even though I was (and am) a staunch atheist and rationalist.

Roberta Flack - First Take / Herbie Hancock - Sextant: the first soul and first jazz album I listened to. Before that I'd shared the "old music is boring, give me the future!" stance many technoheads had at the time, but these ones made me realize the old shit could also be seriously freaky and relevant to today. Since that realizatio my attitude changed quite a bit, and nowadays about 80% of the stuff I listen to is "old" (made in the 20th century), while only 20% is more current.

I dreamed about this album before I heard it. Dreamed it the whole way through, from start to finish. It had to be at least as good as that. I knew of it but you don’t always get the opportunity to find the time or resources to unearth it and listen to it.

It is February 1980 and I am sixteen and at the point when I’m wondering what I’m going to do with the rest of my life. I hear these musics – no one else at school or college seems bothered about them, indeed regularly ridicule me for my “weird” tastes – and they come flying at me together with everything of “now” that I’m also assimilating (but at a different speed).

What I do know is that I’m in love with the notion of taking all this music I’m hearing, all these different and differing musicians, and putting them all together, because, then as now, I see no reason to split everything into god knows how many convenient categories. Too much effort and too little point.

But nobody else in Glasgow is really into this sort of stuff. My dad and I both do illustrated lectures at the Glasgow Rhythm Club of a Friday evening and they are appreciated, but is anybody getting it? There are obscure retreats – James Kerr’s long-gone specialist jazz/classical shop up in Woodlands Road, another place around the corner from St George’s Cross Underground whose name I’ve long forgotten, Iona Records in Stockwell Street (they all vanished somewhere nearer to then than now) – and I’m grappling for something, trying to make sense, but it’s not quite coming together. Already I’m having to make weekend trips to Edinburgh to satisfy my cravings for further and further out there music, and I’m ordering stuff from London – Mole Jazz, Honest Jon’s – by post.

There’s this library, Bridge Street Library, bang in the middle of the wreckage that used to be the Gorbals (the Gorbals have since been “regenerated” and the library is gone). I go to the Mitchell Library at the end of Bath Street every Saturday after I’ve done my weekly music shop, where I can practise at their piano, and read and read and read; old music papers, reference books, anything I can find. In one music paper Richard Williams says this is one of the greatest records ever made. In another one it gets compared, favourably, to Sgt Pepper.

They have a copy in Bridge Street; you come out of the Underground station, cross some wasteland and there it is, at a wrecked corner, still proud. Because I live in Bothwell I can’t actually borrow records from Glasgow libraries (I came under the libraries of Lanarkshire innit) but because my dad works in Glasgow we both have passes which allow us to listen to their stock. There’s a booth, at the far south-east end of the library, out of the way of browsers and readers, where you can go, clamp on the headphones and listen (the library staff put it on at the counter and you have to go and ask them to change the sides over).

And they had this record, and I listened to it, and things changed immediately. Everything now made sense. Everything was there. I was stunned by it, literally stunned; was I staggering around the South side when I reeled out? I might have been. The world looked different, felt different, smelled different. I knew what I wanted and by God I wanted that record and its world.

No copies in any shops in Glasgow, so I travelled to Edinburgh – that faultless clear blue March sky, coming up the steps of Waverley Station, I’ll never forget that – and placed an order with Virgin Records (since here it was issued on Virgin). A few weeks later a note came back to me in the post saying that it had been deleted in November 1979. Aargh!

But I wasn’t to be deterred; I rang up Honest Jon’s in Camden and they searched for a copy and they had a copy for £4.50 and I sent off the postal order and it came and if I listened to much else in 1980 I can’t remember what it was; this dominated. Then the deluxe reissue in 1981 and finally the CD issue in the nineties and my feelings for it haven’t changed in all that time; this was, and is, the record that formed me:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/3/35/Escalator_Over_The_Hill-CD.jpg

"wiener trance"

Love to you, Tuomas, and to the Finnish people.

Great story, Marcello. I've never heard that album, but now I want to listen to it based on your post.

When I was a little kid, my sister and I helping Mom decorate the house for Christmas was probably our favorite thing. Putting up the fake tree, putting on the ornaments and tinsel and the little silver "icicles," applying those sticky window appliques, making sugar cookies . . . I'm a jaded old guy now, and mostly hate Christmas, but I have extremely fond memories of that stuff. And year after year, this album was the soundtrack. There were a couple of others that Mom liked (most notably Elvis), but this one got played more than any other:

http://sp0.fotolog.com/photo/0/36/98/buddy__holly/1229375097577_f.jpg

Even today, just hearing the opening notes of any one of these songs is like some Proust-level trigger for me.

Boy, this was hard to piece back together, and brings up a lot of weird stuff (this would be a good therapist's question!) I went through to age 20, and this is so piecemeal, I have no idea if I am missing anything big

(Born 1968)

5th grade, Age 10 (1978): Beatles 1967-1970 (Blue Album)
7th grade, Age 12 (1980): Rolling Stones, Hot Rocks; Doors “13”; Christopher Cross (!)
8th grade, Age 13 (1981): The Who, Face Dances
9th grade, Age 14 (1982): Pink Floyd, The Wall; Bob Dylan, Greatest Hits
10th grade, Age 15 (1983): Dire Straits, Love Over Gold/Making Movies; Bowie, Let’s Dance; The Police, Synchronicity
11th grade, Age 16 (1984): Prince, Purple Rain; U2, Unforgettable Fire
David Sylvian, Brilliant Trees; Tom Waits, Swordfishtrombones; Billie Holiday, Songs for Distingue Lovers
12th grade, Age 17 (1985): Tears for Fears, Songs from the Big Chair; Style Council, My Everchanging Moods (in UK, Café Bleu); Laurie Anderson, United States Live;
Tom Waits, Rain Dogs; Aztec Camera, Knife
Freshman, Age 18 (1986): David Sylvian, Gone to Earth; Everything but the Girl, Eden; Velvet Underground, 1969 VU Live; Echo & the Bunnymen, Songs to Learn and Sing
Sophomore, Age 19 (1987): Prince, Sign of the Times; Suzanne Vega, Solitude Standing; Betty Blue (Soundtrack); David Sylvian, Secrets of the Beehive;
Roxy Music, Flesh and Blood, Avalon; Bryan Ferry, Boys and Girls
Junior, Age 20 (1988): Cocteau Twins, Blue Bell Knoll; Sade, Stronger Than Pride; Louis Armstrong Meets Oscar Peterson

sorry about that formatting, couldn't get it right!

yeah I guess its time to finally hear "Escalator Over the Hill"

been re-listening to some of these lately - especially my old "paper route" records - right now, I cannot really remember what the houses looked like, but listening to these songs, some of very specific details come to mind. Very strange

Talking Heads -- Fear Of Music

That record has a devastating impact on my 14 year old brain.

Precursors: Orange County, 1970-1975. KHJ-AM radio - occasionally a great song, but mostly "this is kinda boring -- why are they playing the same things over and over again?" Move to Mississippi, 1975, local radio. "This is REALLY boring, why are they playing the same things over and over again?"

Christmas 1978, first hi-fi (all-in one model with tuner, turntable, 8-track player): Beatles, 1967-70 (blue vinyl), 1962-66 (red vinyl).
Early 79: White Album on white vinyl
Christmas 79: Tusk
1980: Sheik Yerbouti, Physical Graffiti
1981: Bob Dylan's Greatest Hits Volume 2, More Songs About Buildings and Food
Fall 1981: mindblower #1 http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/611tcoHX%2B4L._SS400_.jpg
1982: Kind of Blue, Sketches of Spain, Bitches Brew
1983: The Velvet Underground and Nico, 1969 Velvet Underground Live
1985: punk via mixtapes from pals Mike and George; mindblower #2: http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51xuduIly1L._SL500_AA300_.jpg

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-4LMrjyX-kr0/ThOwzQL4tyI/AAAAAAAAAD0/nqAF77WD9Xg/s1600/jukebox.jpg
No album has literally “shaped my life,” but Sandinista was the first album that really helped to broad my musical tastes. It was the first “punk” or “alternative” album I ever bought (same for Kurt Cobain, I understand) and it also touched on reggae, calypso, gospel, rap, funk, rockabilly, etc. Fittingly it came out when I was still in a funk over John Lennon’s death. It just opened a lot of doors for me.

"broaden"

I'm going to do the lazy thing like Michael B and c&p this note from my facebook, which is a couple of years old, so I'll make some edits and addenda:

1. Jackson 5 – Greatest Hits (early 1980s)

Okay, I don’t remember which actual album this was. I think it was packaged with a single Michael Jackson glove and a button that said “I <3 J5". I might be conflating a couple different albums. First favorite song: Rockin’ Robin. Now favorite song: I Want You Back.

2. The Beatles – Help/A Hard Day’s Night/Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band (mid 1980s)

These were back to back on a tape my dad put together for our annual car-rides to Wisconsin and Michigan. Say that to yourself: “Annual car rides to Wisconsin and Michigan.” The Beatles were my saviors. I made up little stories in my head about what I thought the songs were about. It was all very confusing, but great.

3.) Beastie Boys – License to Ill (1987)

The best damn record to ride your bikes around the cul-de-sac to! Rad! (R.I.P. Mikey) Not my first exposure to hip-hop, but this shaped the late elementary school era for me. Once again, a very confusing record.

4.) Def Leppard – Hysteria (1987)

The other best damn record to ride your bikes around the cul-de-sac to! Yeah! What a combination!

5.) Motley Crue – Dr. Feelgood (late 1980s)

Meet me down by Boardwalk Fries - I got the new Motley Crue album! I don’t think I’ve ever seen that particular shade of green anywhere else. I was first exposed to hair metal a few years before when I saw a Judas Priest video on MTV (shortly before my mom banned MTV) and it had trickled down in little bits here and there, but this album made me an unrepentant grit.

6.) The Ramones – Animal Boy (late 1980s)

Not their best, but my first Ramones album after hearing “Eat That Rat” on WHFS back when that station was good. With all the synths, it was a strange intro to punk.

7.) Dead Milkmen – Beelzebubba (late 1980s/early 1990s)
A happy median between their earlier joke-punk and their later attempts to be serious/philosophical. This album seethes with snide late 80s disgust and paranoia and sadness. I skateboarded to this album every night in my garage when I was 11.

8.) The Cure – Disintegration (early 1990s)

I don’t think I need to say much about this album.

9.) Metallica - …And Justice For All (early 1990s)

Hey. I like the production just fine! Who needs a bass player anyway? Metallica at their most musically ambitious (and pulling it off) and their least lyrically embarrassing. This was the first album I heard that was, I don't know, artistically expansive?

10./11.)The Grateful Dead – American Beauty; Janis Joplin – Pearl (1993)

I didn’t get into them at first because I figured with a name like Grateful Dead and all those skulls, they should sound like Iron Maiden. The Dead album in particular is my go-to for familiarity and reassurance. I’ll be listening to that album until I die.

12. Camper Van Beethoven – Key Lime Pie (1993)

One of the first records where I realized that the lyrics were like short fiction. This probably influenced me to read a lot more.

13.)Phish – Rift (1993)

When I was a freshman, I stumbled upon a couple of upperclassmen who I looked up to who were singing a song from this at a playground near my house. I asked them what it was, then walked 5 miles directly to the mall and bought it. Probably the first real front-to-back concept album I had heard?

14.) Jane’s Addiction – Ritual De Lo Habitual (1993)

I thought of this one last, and am tired to typing out explanations – psychedelic fire.

15.) The Meat Puppets – Up on The Sun (1993)

Most of these songs could have gone on for longer than they did. Why was I so unsuccessful in making all my Phish-loving friends like this band? If Maiden’s Milk had been 19 minutes long, it would have been You Enjoy Myself.

16.) Sublime – 40 oz. to Freedom (1995/1996)

Strong cult love from certain areas of the high school parking lot. I saw them at their final tour stop in DC. One month later (on the day of Jen’s graduation party) I heard that the singer died. Then EV-erybody got into them.

17.) Beatnuts – Street Level (1997)

In the summer of 1997, delivering pizza for Domino’s in my twelve-year-old Volvo, I thought I was “Street Level” when I had this on the cassette deck.

18.) Steely Dan – Katy Lied (1998/1999)

Another album that has a rep for its bad production. I always thought that made it sound as seedy as the lyrics.

19.)John Coltrane – Stellar Regions (1999)

Along with Katy Lied, my official soundtrack for Drawing 101 and 102 at Howard Community College. I put more time into the homework for those classes than any class I’d ever taken and I still can’t draw. Art is a process.

20.) DJ Food – Kaleidescope (2000)

Pretentious music for the stormy summer that I discovered gin.

21.)Thrice – The Illusion of Safety (2002)

Good soundtrack for relationship troubles in my early twenties. I couldn’t get much into screamo as a genre, but this record was remarkably well done.

22.)Drive-By Truckers – Southern Rock Opera (2003)

Contains the only song (Women Without Whiskey) that has ever made the hair on the back of my neck stand on end. And it happens consistently! I’d call that a profound effect.

23.)Built to Spill – Keep It Like a Secret (2005)

I had always wanted to make music. Then I heard Built to Spill, decided that they had got it right, and gave up. Built to Spill reminds me of skateboarding inside a UFO with a kitten standing on your head while the sun sets.

24.) Fleetwood Mac – Tusk (2007)

I has the best Christine McVie songs and their best moment of raw joy (Mick and Lindsay on "What Makes You Think You're the One”). Used to be that liking FM made you ooooooooold so now I listen to FM and feel oooooold.

25.) The Mountain Goats – We Shall All Be Healed. (2008)

This album was the most fun I had picking apart lyrics in a while. It took me back to when I was a teenager and bridged the gap for me where my habits and those of a lot of my friends diverged. There’s a lot of music about drug addiction, I guess, but I don’t think I’ve heard anyone else write on that grim topic in such an entertaining and compassionate voice.

26.) Taylor Swift – Fearless (2009)

Broke me out of my "oh yeah, country music? I LOVE the Grateful Dead" thing. Also maybe the “not listening to music by teenage girls” thing. It’s a front-to-back classic to me for the songwriting and arrangements, but it’s also sent me down different paths.

http://sickmouthy.com/2011/11/04/the-records-that-shaped-my-life/

From age 6 through 22. Maybe 85% of my tastes were shaped by these:

The Ventures play Telstar & The Lonely Bull (Just because those guitars sounded cool - my main reason for listening to any and all of this stuff)
Jim Croce, Life and Times
Stevie Wonder, Songs In The Key Of Life
Ramones, Rocket To Russia
Donna Summer, Live and More (Those disco synthesizers!)
Supertramp, Crime of the Century (Prog-rock production techniques: segues, sound FX, etc.)
Beatles, 1967-70
Various, Woodstock O.S.A. (cemented an infatuation with hippie-era musics and whatnot)
Led Zeppelin, zoso (the LP that launched 1000 used-record store trips, in hopes that I could find anything half as perfect)
Kraftwerk, The Man Machine
Velvet Underground & Nico
Motorhead, Ace of Spades
Bob Dylan, Highway 61 Revisited (first time I paid attention to lyrics)
Funkadelic, Greatest Hits
Frank Zappa/Mothers, Over-Nite Sensation
Various, Fire Into Music: The Best of impulse! Vol. III

Al Green - I'm still in love with you
Books - Lost & Safe
Can - Ege Bamyasi
Chöying Drolma & Steve Tibbetts - Cho
Fennesz - Venice
Fred Neil - Fred Neil
Fridge - Happiness
Gang of Four - Entertainment!
Hope Sandoval - Bavarian Fruit Bread
Jimi Hendrix - Axis
Jorge Ben - Jorge Ben
Miles Davis - In a Silent Way
Panda Bear - Person Pitch
Pole - 1
Radiohead - Kid A
Ricardo Villalobos - Alcachofa
Robbie Basho - Venus in Cancer
Stereolab - Peng!
Stooges - Raw Power
Velvet Underground - Loaded

I actually have a more obscure, personal list somewhere that I'll post with descriptions.... these are rather my favorite entry albums into other sorts of sounds and perspectives.

Insomuch as music is my life, DJ Harvey's Sarcastic Disco opened up a whole new world to me. Like, I always knew that there was more great music out there than I would ever have to listen to. But then I realized I

was wrong, there are UNIVERSES of UNIVERSES of beautiful music out there

also (simultaneously) mp3 rips of Daneile Baldelli and TBC's Cosmic tapes